The decision to fully end COVID-19 vaccine mandates has come as a welcome relief to home and community support health services, the boss of New Zealand's largest provider says.
Most COVID-19 restrictions were ditched on Tuesday with remaining vaccine mandates to fully end in a fortnight.
The mandates put pressure on home-care providers such as the New Zealand Health Group, which lost hundreds of workers because of the mandates, chief executive Josephine Gagan said.
Gagan welcomed the move to ditch mandates, saying the business would now have the opportunity to re-hire between 700 and 800 qualified support workers.
"It's had quite an impact on our ability to provide care and… quite an impact on vulnerable Kiwis who really rely on that care," Gagan told AM.
"The people who we support, who we've been talking to, have said, 'Look, I would rather have someone turn up and help me have a shower, get out of bed, help me with breakfast… than have nobody turn up.'"
Cody Alden, a patient requiring at-home care, told AM he was relieved all remaining vaccine mandates were ending.
"I can't get out of bed without caregivers and so when the mandates were around, I quite often had to do without my care - so that meant I couldn't run my business and I couldn't participate in normal activities like the rest of New Zealanders take for granted," he told host Ryan Bridge.
"It was really difficult when half my carers could not turn up for work - I lost quite a lot of carers due to the mandates."
Alden said he would rather an unvaccinated carer wearing personal protective equipment over not having a carer at all.
"I'd much rather get out of bed than worry about whether they were vaccinated or not because I can't live my life to the fullest potential if I can't get out of my bed."
Meanwhile, disability advocate Huhana Hickey did not welcome the move. She told Stuff disabled people shouldn't "be forced to have anti-vaxxer, anti-mandaters care for them when they themselves need the vaccination".
But Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said now was the time for New Zealanders to "take back control" of COVID-19.
"The most recent health advice now tells us that with the lowest cases and hospitalisations since February, our population well vaccinated and expanded access to antiviral medicines, New Zealand is in a position to move forward."